


Touching the Sky

by adarkwintersday



Series: Hide Those Ears [13]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s03e10 For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:54:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adarkwintersday/pseuds/adarkwintersday
Summary: Spock had an emotional reaction.  But the doctor's in no mood to gloat...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky.

Spock _touched_ him, is what.

True, the doctor was dying, and - even for the pointy-eared hobgoblin - it must have been a bit of a shock.  McCoy had Xenopolycythemia, and Spock had just found out.

Later Spock actually managed, against all odds, to find a cure and save his life.  But the _Enterprise_ 's First Officer has already saved McCoy's life more than once.  It's the _touching_ that...

Spock never voluntarily touches anyone.  Well, only Jim.  Meaning that he lets _Jim_ touch _him_.  Jim, of course, touches Spock constantly, compulsively, and without permission.  With the thoughtless intimacy, the careless entitlement, of a lover.  Even though, McCoy is entirely sure, he _isn't_...well, not yet.  Not literally. Though undoubtedly in spirit...

That, anyway, is not the point.  The point is that Spock - spontaneously, _instinctively _even - put out a hand to touch McCoy.  A cool, pale, long-fingered hand, pressed gently against his arm.  An expression of simple friendship and concern.__

____

Of affection.

____

Between _Spock_ and _him_.

____

Because however many times Spock has saved his ass - well, that's his duty, isn't it?  The green-blooded lizard would just say it was _logical_ to avoid the inconvenient loss of a perfectly serviceable chief medical officer.  If pushed (at phaser-point, perhaps) he might go as far as to admit that the doctor is _highly_ _proficient_.  And yet...

____

The worst of it is that McCoy isn't really surprised. That simple gesture - a hand on his shoulder.  It felt almost frighteningly _right_.  It was just the externalisation, the confirmation, of what has grown - beneath the bickering, the bitching, the very _real_ clash of ideas, values and ideals -

____

Of what has grown between them - slowly, unsteadily, almost imperceptibly - over the past two years.

____

And the doctor can give it a name.

____

In the most private corner of his soul, in silence, in the darkness of the night.  Because he'd rather be turned into a tribble than speak the word out loud.

____

_Love_.

____


End file.
